The Fight to Save Wyoming’s Wild Horses of the Red Desert ContinuesBy Carol WalkerLast year I wrote about the situation facing the wild horses of Wyoming’s Red Desert, a story of the west and of greed that drives the removal of these horses from their homes and their freedom. Today four of the largest herds of wild horses in the country are in jeopardy of being completely zeroed out, or sterilized. These herds are Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and White Mountain.Last summer the Rock Springs Grazing Association, the most powerful grazing association in the country, filed a lawsuit against the BLM to have all wild horses removed from private and well as public lands in the checkerboard area, a twenty mile wide strip of alternating private and public lands formed when the railroad was developed that runs through all 4 herd areas. This was despite an agreement made in the 80s between the grazing association and wild horse advocates and the BLM. The grazing association maintains the BLM doesn’t round up wild horses fast enough to keep the numbers as low as they promised, so they want all the wild horses gone. Luckily, wild horses groups including the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, the Cloud Foundation and the International Society for the Preservation of Wild Horses and Burros have intervened in the lawsuit, representing wild horse interests. While we wait for a judge’s decision, the BLM has issued a Scoping Document for roundups of the Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek Herds scheduled for this summer, no doubt intending to take care of removing these “problem horses” while they can.Most of the older horses, over 10 years old, who are able to be sold for $10 a head, that were rounded up and removed from Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek in 2010 were sold to Tom Davis and ended up at slaughter. Although the BLM is now changing the rules for sales of wild horses, the fact remains that over 55,000 now are in holding facilities, and less than 30,000 remain in the wild, and the holding pens are almost full – what will become of these captive horses?Meanwhile oil and gas development are booming in the fragile Red Desert and now Anschutz has announced a plan for developing the largest wind farm in the country in the area. Wild horses are under siege from many sources.People ask me frequently “What can I do to help?”I am going to be very specific – what is working right now to keep wild horses wild and free and keeping their herds from being sterilized is lawsuits against the BLM. If you want to help, please donate to the legal funds that enable these groups to keep fighting and working to keep our wild horses where they belong, wild and free on our public lands.The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign:https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/69 ... e_KEY=8791